Calendar
Vandana Shiva and Vijaya Nagarajan
Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and alter-globalization author. Currently based in Delhi, she has authored more than twenty books, including Who Really Feeds the World? Water Wars, and Biopiracy. She is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin) and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as the alter-globalization movement. She has argued for the wisdom of many traditional practices, as evidenced by her interview in the book Vedic Ecology. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain’s Socialist Party’s think tank. She is also a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society. She received the Right Livelihood Award in 1993, an honor known as an “Alternative Nobel Prize.” Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India’s leading physicists.
Vijaya Nagarajan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology/Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco. She writes about Hinduism, gender, ritual, ecology and the commons. Recently her work has centered around spiritual autobiographies of place, especially around immigration and motherhood. She has been active in the American Academy of Religion and in environmental movements in the United States. She is the author of Feeding a Thousand Souls which documents the history of the tradition of the kolam. Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create the kōlam, a ritual design made of rice flour, on the thresholds of homes. This thousand year-old ritual welcomes and honors the goddesses Lakshmi and Bhudevi. Braiding Tamil women’s voices and the author’s own stories, Feeding a Thousand Souls offers different knowledge traditions––beauty, history, gender, literature, religion, anthropology, mathematics, and ecology.
In cooperation with KPFA.
*** Location change: Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Berkeley ***
Please join us for a special lecture series with celebrated author and scholar Marion Nestle.
Food Politics 2019: Food Policy in the Trump Era
What’s happening under the Trump administration to policies aimed at solving problems of undernutrition, obesity, and the effects of food production on the environment?
Introduction by Michael Pollan, John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism.
This is the first lecture in a series of three special events:
February 12, 2019: https://bit.ly/2ANX9nh
Food Politics 2019: Nutrition Science Under Siege
Nutrition science is under attack from statisticians and the food industry. Who stands to gain and what might be lost?
February 19, 2019: https://bit.ly/2slNtLK
Food Politics 2019: An Agenda for the Food Movement
Recent government policy changes are eroding programs aimed at feeding the hungry, curbing obesity, and protecting the environment. What can consumers and citizens do?
About Marion Nestle
Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, emerita, at New York University. She holds a doctorate in Molecular Biology and an MPH in Public Health Nutrition, both from UC Berkeley. She is the author of ten books, among them the prize-winning Food Politics; What to Eat; Why Calories Count; Eat, Drink, Vote; and Soda Politics. Her most recent book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, was published in 2018. From 2008 to 2013, she wrote a monthly Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle. She blogs almost daily at www.foodpolitics.com, and her twitter account, @marionnestle, has been ranked by Science Magazine, Time Magazine, and The Guardian as among the top ten in health and science.
RSVP: https://bit.ly/2SLZupJ
This series is presented in partnership with Berkeley Journalism, the Berkeley Food Institute, the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship.
#MedicareForAll is supported by the people, but we cannot get it passed without @SpeakerPelosi’s support.
Join us on Tuesday, 2/12 from 6pm-8pm at the Women’s Building (3543 18th Street) as we team up with the Nurse’s Union to call on Pelosi to embrace Medicare for All! pic.twitter.com/2lug001X4K
— SF Berniecrats-Our Revolution (@sfberniecrats) January 21, 2019
The charges are as follows:
Felarca: felony assault with great bodily injury, misdemeanor riot and misdemeanor inciting riot
Williams: felony assault with a deadly weapon, misdemeanor riot
Paz: misdemeanor assault, misdemeanor riot
This is a gross miscarriage of justice. The prosecutor’s case at the evidentiary hearing relied heavily on unauthenticated video and a single witness, the CHP officer, Ayres. His testimony made crystal clear the selective nature and bias of his “investigation” into the protest on June 26, 2016. He was loathe to even characterize the Traditionalist Workers Party as a Nazi or fascist organization. The prosecutor admitted that his “victims” and his witnesses were less than ideal from his point of view, and that his evidence against me for felony charge was lousy. Yet Judge Bulware Eurie refused to drop the charges, sanctioning the Sacramento District Attorney witchhunt in an effort to scapegoat and make examples out of us. We cannot let them succeed.
The defense team plans on bringing another motion to dismiss to stop this case from going to trial. As my attorneys wrote, “If the prosecution of Felarca, Paz, and Williams proceeds, then Donald Trump will have already achieved one of his central aims: the substitution of authoritarianism for constitutional due process rights and democratic norms. A policy of naked state discrimination and persecution of racial minorities and left-wing political activists would be a fact and reality.'”
Thank you everyone for the support you’ve given us thus far. Coming to Sacramento, raising your voices at pickets, your unions and organizations, it has meant the world to us. We are committed to standing up and fighting this out, because we know that we’re fighting not only for ourselves, but for generations to come. Now that this judge has ruled to maintain the charges, in the course of the next several weeks, it’s urgent that we redouble our education and outreach efforts for the defense campaign. Here are some useful media links on the case. A list of labor support and other organizations is below, too. If I missed any, my apologies, and let me know as soon as possible so I can modify the list. Please continue to reach out to organizations or unions that you work with. I’ve attached a sample resolution you can bring to your organization. All support is welcome.
In Solidarity,
Yvette Felarca
Sacramento 3 Defendant
BAMN National Organizer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Court Support Needed for the Next Hearing (Arraignment): Wed. Feb. 13 at 8:30 am at the Sacramento Courthouse, 651 i-St. Dept. 63.
2. Useful webpage on the case with with links to defense motions and exhibits: bamn.com/defendyvettefelarca
3. Media Coverage of the Case:
A. The Guardian Jan. 25, 2019: How a California officer protected neo-Nazis and targeted their victims
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/25/california-police-neo-nazis-antifa-protest?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
B. Sacramento News and Review article on evidentiary preliminary hearing Jan. 4, 2019:
https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/exhibits-lies-videotape/content?oid=27528610
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
C. The Guardian: exclusive interview after Felarca’s July 19, 2017 arrest:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/25/yvette-felarca-trump-protest-charges-activism
D. NY Daily News:
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/middle-school-teacher-arrested-punching-neo-nazi-article-1.3418200
E. Huffington Post:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yvette-felarca-neo-nazi-fascism_us_59949dece4b0d0d2cc83d266
F. The Young Turks Youtube Story: Police Teaming Up with Neo-Nazi’s Now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoZuKMbjDBE&feature=youtu.be
G. Video: Vice Deezus and Mero Stand With Middle School Teacher Yvette Felarca
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ywwwqy/desus-and-mero-defend-a-teacher-who-was-arrested-for-punching-a-neo-nazi
H. Uneditted TV interviews on June 26, 2016 after the anti-fascist protest in Sacramento:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2dd1YoDULg
I. KTVU Interview defending shut down of alt-right Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopolous at UC Berkeley, Feb. 3, 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPrRLyFTzSU&t=2s
We will be joined by Cooperation Jackson Co-Founder and Executive Director, Kali Akuno. The program will feature a presentation about the innovative work of Cooperation Jackson, and will focus in particular on their two primary initiatives for 2019: Revitalizing a former Grocery Plaza and exhibiting their first digitally fabricated homes on their Ewing Street Eco-Village Pilot Project.
For those who don’t know, Cooperation Jackson is an emerging network of worker cooperatives and supporting solidarity economy institutions and practices based in Jackson, Mississippi. For more information on Cooperation Jackson visit www.CooperationJackson.org.
Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a huge upsurge in activism within the technology community. From the walkouts at Google to labor organizing at Amazon, tech workers are starting to see a connection between their work and social issues. Engineer, activist, and entrepreneur Leigh Honeywell has been at the forefront of tech activism for many years. We’ll be talking to her about the new tech activism, and the politics of a life lived online.
Honeywell founded two hackerspaces (HackLabTO in Toronto, and the Seattle Attic Community Workshop in Seattle), created the widely-circulated Never Again pledge, and now heads her own company, Tall Poppy, where she helps companies protect their employees from online harassment. The thread that runs throughout her work is using technology to create more privacy and safety for people online. She’ll discuss the growing resistance to the practices of corporations that profile users, or sell their data, and the rise of services that protect people from digital harassment.
Honeywell was previously a Technology Fellow at the ACLU’s Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology, and also worked at Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft, and Symantec. Leigh has a Bachelors of Science from the University of Toronto where she majored in Computer Science and Equity Studies.
She’ll be in conversation with Ars Technica contributors Annalee Newitz and Cyrus Farivar.
Ars Technica Live takes place on the second Wednesday of every month at Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland (3629 MLK Way—they have the best tater tots you’ve ever eaten).
Doors open at 7pm, and the live filming is from 7:30pm to 8:20-ish (be sure to get there early if you want a seat). Stick around afterward for informal discussion, beer, and snacks. Can’t make it out to Oakland? Never fear! Episodes will be posted to Ars Technica two weeks after the live events.
When Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and The Progressive Labor Party (PL) splintered in June 1969, a majority of the delegates supported the program of its Worker-Student Alliance caucus. These candid accounts by WSA activists bring to life their struggles to end the Vietnam War and achieve social justice-and evaluate both WSA’s successes and its failure to achieve its promise.
The contributors in this book were mostly members of WSA, whose formation was initiated by the Maoist Progressive Labor Party. Here they recount and evaluate their participation in the struggles of the 1960s and early 1970s, from trips to revolutionary Cuba defying the US travel ban to student strikes, labor and community alliances, and campaigns against the war and racism across the country, from Columbia and Harvard, Texas and Iowa, to San Francisco State and UC Berkeley.
With editor John Levin.
EVICTION SUPPORT NEEDED Thu & Fri starting 8am
All Lake Merritt camps getting booted. Bring coffee, bkfst, trashbags, lunch. Starting at columns @Lakeshore— Anti Police-Terror (@APTPaction) February 13, 2019
Join us this Thursday at the BART Board mtg and next week to celebrate the people that made #ReclaimMLKOak possible .
Last month the Oakland City Council unanimously approved a resolution to name an unnamed street near Fruitvale Station as Oscar Grant Way. Join us and Oscar Grant’s family this Thursday at the BART Board of Directors meeting to make sure they approve the motion!
Huge THANK YOU to everyone that came out last month to support the 5th Annual People’s March to Reclaim King’s Legacy!
It was a beautiful day with about 3,000 people marching in the streets, an amazing people’s concert and a deep healing ritual lead by Lead to Life to close in the evening.
Check out more photos by the talented Amir Saadiq of that day.
We lifted up the demands of the people’s platform, held People’s Assemblies on housing, education, inter-communal violence, development, use of force, and sanctuary for all.
- ALAMEDA COUNTY Board of Supervisors Public Protection Committee meeting
- ENTIRE AGENDA HERE
- -FIRE DRONES- Several years back, Alameda County residents , because of privacy concerns, opposed a plan by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department to use “small unmanned aerial systems” AKA drones to fight crime. Ultimately the drones were purchased and a policy for its use was crafted by residents and law enforcement. Now, the Alameda County Fire Department wants its own policy to use drones to fight fires. The early stages of a policy comes before the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ Public Protection Committee on Thursday morning. Over the past year, Alameda County Fire has used the Sheriff’s drones to access blazes on several occasions in the county. Alameda County Sheriff’s drones were also used recently to aid in recent Northern California wildfires. The Fire Department hopes to have a policy is placed by October of this year.
Can’t Build Our Way Out
We invite our allies, the media, government staff, and funders to hear from local community groups working to house low-income people and people of color—who have experienced consecutive waves of housing crises—and built lasting solutions in the process. We will host a moderated panel to amplify the voices and accomplishments of Serve the People San Jose, The Village, and others. Panelists will discuss the importance and potential of public land, community land trusts, and permanently affordable housing structures. The event is free, but please register here, so we can provide coffee and light refreshments.
Coffee and light refreshments will be served.
If you have any questions, please contact Leslie at leslie@urbanhabitat.org.
EVICTION SUPPORT NEEDED Thu & Fri starting 8am
All Lake Merritt camps getting booted. Bring coffee, bkfst, trashbags, lunch. Starting at columns @Lakeshore— Anti Police-Terror (@APTPaction) February 13, 2019
A lot of people have not heard in depth details of what people who are in the circumstance of not having a house to live in, go through. Join us at the Berkeley Animal Rights Center for a personal presentation from Robin Housley about that subject exactly with a surprise guest.
This surprise guest, due to a life threatening illness, lost their job while getting medical treatment and subsequently lost their place of residence. They were living without a house for nearly three years on the streets, primarily in San Francisco and the East Bay Area, before being able to get back into permanent housing. They will speak about their experience and where it has lead them.
Robin Housley has recently lived without a house spending around 2 years on the streets of Berkeley and is still active in being friends with individuals he met on his journey. He will be speaking about some of his activism, experiences and transformations throughout living without a house that forced a light in parts of him and society at large.
This is a DINNER SHARE event! Please bring a completely vegan dinner dish or side dish or drink to this event. Thank you all so much and we hope to see you there.
The director sets out to tell the story of the rise and fall of the The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by weaving together rare archival footage, interviews with ex-Panthers and others, and music.
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F56O3kZ9qr0
https://www.revolutionbooks.org/
The Oakland Police Commission is holding it’s first special public hearing. The commissioners decided to focus on homelessness. #OakMtg pic.twitter.com/QA2pZ2HhQC
— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) February 2, 2019
In San Francisco we celebrate Valentine’s Week – the week of love and friendship – with an annual Nude Valentine Parade. Why nude? Because it’s much more interesting and fun that way, and because nudity and love go well together. But more importantly, this is a way to reduce the harm that prudishness does to our society.
The parade starts in the Castro District – once famous as the nation’s center of gay love – and ends in the Haight-Ashbury District – where the Summer of Love took place in the year 1967.
We will gather at Jane Warner Plaza (corner of Castro and Market Streets) at noon on Feb 16 (the Saturday following Valentine’s Day). We will walk from the plaza to Haight Street, via a mostly level route (uphill portions are not very steep). The parade ends at Haight and Stanyan Streets.
The parade itself takes about an hour, but we have the option to stay until 4pm on the sidewalks along Haight Street. Friendly visitors to the Haight-Ashbury are usually eager to chat and have their pictures taken with public nudists.
The parade is free for anyone to join, to follow, or to watch. Anyone can participate –visitors and locals, all genders, all ages. Any degree of nudity is legal at this event, and many participants will only be wearing shoes.
In the spirit of grief, love, and compassion, we will gather to honor Earth and to affirm our commitment to rebel nonviolently against government inaction on climate change. The gathering is the first step in a series of XR events this spring as we build up to International Rebellion Week in April. Please join us and join the rebellion!
This event will include a climate ribbon ceremony, a silent march, art & music and amazing speakers including:
– Joanna Macy, author of Active Hope
– Pennie Opal Plant of Idle No More
– Rhiannon Hewitt, who performed at the Pathway to Paris
– Ryan Rising of Permaculture Action Network
Please help us fill the amphitheater by spreading the word to your friends, colleagues and family members on social media. Also, please ask them to sign up on our Action Network page for updates on future actions.
Help us turn up the noise on Twitter by using the hashtag #XRBayArea and click “attending” on this Facebook event.
BRING:
A CANDLE: Please bring A CANDLE, one for each person coming. It may be windy, so we suggest a candle in a glass, or a taper candle with an improvised shield – we trust your ingenuity.
GENERAL: This is an outdoor event, so layers, an umbrella and comfortable shoes, water and your own snacks. We gather rain and shine.
KIDS: This is a kid friendly event, though there will not be specific programming for children.
ART: We have created some inspiring art for this event. We encourage everyone to create your own additional signs, banners, puppets, etc – we love your style!
WHO WE ARE:
We are the Extinction Rebellion, an international nonviolent direct action movement that represents nothing less than radical love at work. We aim to drive radical change, through nonviolent resistance, in order to avert climate breakdown and minimize the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse. In a matter of a few months, XR has sprouted up in more than 200 locations around the world and it continues to grow.
We rebel because our governments’ continued submission to fossil fuel interests is setting us on the path to climate change catastrophe and extinction. We rebel because we understand that racial healing and climate justice are inextricably linked. The communities most harmed by climate change — indigenous nations, poor communities, front line communities of color — are the ones least responsible for producing it. We rebel because the systems that have transformed our climate are fundamentally unjust. We rebel because we are in dire need of broad-based, grassroots resistance and collaboration for resilience amid deep social divisions and runaway climate change. We rebel because our kinship with all life on Earth requires us to do so.
For more information, message XR Coordination through the FB page.
On January 22nd Mike Pence made a phone call to opposition politician Juan Guaidó, essentially offering him the presidency of Venezuela. The next day, Guaidó swore an oath in which he appointed himself “Interim President of Venezuela.” Minutes later, Donald Trump officially recognized that self-appointment, in effect instigating a coup against the elected Bolivarian government of Nicholas Maduro. Since then, the mainstream corporate media has been supporting the coup, flooding the air waves and Internet with stories about chaos, poverty, corruption, and violence in Venezuela, exclusively covering anti-government marches, and showing clips of world leaders calling for the overthrow of the Venezuelan government.
Yet in a poll conducted a little more than a week before, 81% of Venezuelans had never even heard of the 35-year-old Guaido! Not mentioned in these news reports are the extremely popular education, health care, and housing programs provided by the Venezuelan government, that the U.S. government has imposed draconian economic sanctions on Venezuela, and that the U.S. has openly spent tens of millions of dollars supporting violent opposition groups. Also not mentioned is that despite all of this, Maduro won re-election in May and thousands have been marching throughout Venezuela in support of the government since the attempted coup; almost every day.
Donald Trump has threatened to use “all options, including military” against Venezuela, a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves that John Bolton has openly said best belong in the hands of American oil companies. The attack on Venezuela foreshadows forthcoming attacks on Cuba, Iran, and Nicaragua, as well as attacks on anyone here in the U.S. who dares to oppose this drive for domination and destruction of yet another country.
Come to a presentation and discussion to find out what’s really happening in Venezuela.
Speakers: Alicia Jrapko, Task Force on the Americas; Mehmet Bayram, Independent Journalist, Allan Miller, Economist, Activist & Writer.